THE BOOK OF JUDGES ON THE SILVER SCREEN

Bible movies are all the rage these days. I suppose that is Roma Downey’s fault.

Yesterday our small group lesson was from the Bible’s book of Judges. Our facilitator, Dan, did a great job with it. Then we taught the younger children’s church lesson about Samson. Finally, last night, I watched the Oscars (I so nailed best picture, director, and actor in my predictions) with my family. The two ideas swirled around in my brain and woke up this morning thinking about this blog from over a year ago where I wondered what it would be like to cast movies about the Judges.I’ve also added a poll at the bottom of this cut-n-paste of the original blog post. Enjoy.

This morning I have a lot work to do, but my mind is still on my “What if the Judges of Ancient Israel were recast as Sheriff’s in the Old West” from yesterday’s blog. Originally I was thinking about books or a collection of short stories, but the more I think about it, these would work really well as feature length films. I mean, the concept couldn’t be any worse than the very disappointing Cowboys and Aliens.

Now I turn my attention to, if they were films, who would I prefer to cast in the various roles? Hummm…..

Samson--Sheriff Sam is strong, arrogant and has spectacular hair. Obvious go to moves would be Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I think he is now too old to play the role. I think we might have to tack a different direction–Sheriff Sam’s strength doesn’t come from his muscles, but from God, so we don’t have to make him a body builder. So, what about Ashton Kutcher? He has the fair for it, is about the right age, and would easily pass for an arrogant fool. Delilah is a tart, so we need someone who could pull that off in a sleazy kind of way. She needs to be young–almost late teens early 20’s. How about Vanessa Hudgens? If she’s not available, then maybe Scarlett Johansson? On second thought, go with Scarlett–she would play a bad girl well. Since the original post, I’ve decided Jennifer Lawrence could pull this off better.

Deborah–Sheriff Debbie or, as she’s known by the locals, “Little Debbie,” is older, matronly, and regal. I think of her as Barbara Stanwyck in the old tv show, “The Big Valley.” How about Judi Dench, especially now that she is finished with James Bond? If she is unavailable, perhaps Betty White. In the Deborah story it is important that we cast Barak, Jael, and Sisera. Barak is easy–that is Bill Pullman. Zoe Saldana would be a good fit for Jael. For Sisera? Antonio Banderas. Yeah, Antonio Banderas. Again, I’ve thought about it and instead of Bill Pullman, how about Michael Fassbender?

Ehud–Sheriff Ehud is a spy who has recently been promoted to U.S. Marshall so he covers a large territory. He should be in his mid 20’s and be athletic but not bulky because he has chase scenes and fight scenes. We have a lot of options. If we go with an earthy look, then Rupert Grint could do the trick, but I don’t know if he has the acting skills to mask that British accent of his. If we want to go with the poster-boy, then Taylor Lautner. Do we want to go techno geeky? Then how about Michael Cera. Do we want the character to have an urban hipness? Then we crank it up with Corbin Bleu. The one person, though, I forbid on my project is Shia Lebeouf. Scrap all of those, except the prohibition on Lebeouf. I now believe that we would have to cast Chris Pine as Ehud.

Gideon–Sheriff Giddy is a reluctant war hero who is young, still under his father’s care so to speak when he starts out. Gideon has doubt, but casts his doubts aside and moves forward in faith. In my mind the character has a lot of Will Smith in him, but Smith is too old to play the part, unless we elongate the story over a period of years and have Will Smith’s son, Jaden, play the younger Gideon and then Will Smith play the older Gideon. Nice. I like it.

I think each one of these should get their own film, and then we could tie them together with one final film in one large assault on the enemy fort—kind of like the Avengers did with their superheros.